


let's savour what we're falling over

by vashtaneradas



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-03 23:57:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vashtaneradas/pseuds/vashtaneradas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>west wing au (loosely); in other words everyone works in the white house and louis likes getting coffee with the washington post reporter in his briefing room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's savour what we're falling over

**Author's Note:**

> own nothing/know nothing/obviously. completely fictionalised. 
> 
> title from young the giant's apartment.
> 
> full disclosure, this is both entirely self indulgent and utterly ridiculous. you don’t need to have seen the show or know any politics for it to make sense, though. promise! basically, they’re all very clever and busy and overworked and that's it, really.
> 
> part of the bella-tries-to-move-all-her-writing-over-to-ao3 marathon of 2013.

The first time Louis sees him is at 3am on election night. Which he will of course come to see as somewhat fortuitous, but not tonight. Tonight is the biggest night of his life, and if he’s honest, he barely gives Harry five minutes thought. Tonight, Harry is one of the many strangers he passes in the halls of the hotel.

It is 3am and it is election night and somehow – somehow – their ragtag-at-best, entirely-dysfunctional-at-worst, struggling-to-find-donations and really-much-too-liberal-to-be-a-viable-Democratic-candidate team have…well they’ve won, haven’t they. They’ve won.

And it’s been nine months of traipsing across the country and sleeping three, maybe four, hours a night, nine months of numbersnumbersnumbers and if we can just get through this week then and well if we can just get this donation then and it’s been so many close calls and lucky breaks and fuck ups and highs and lows and they’ve won. They’re standing here, CNN on in the background as the President-Elect’s victory speech – the one he gave in this room, the one that Louis’ best friend in the whole world wrote – is played over on repeat and God. God. They’ve won.

Louis spots Zayn across the room and grins as he comes bounding over, drinks in hand.

“Oh my God!” Zayn yells in his face, smiling like an idiot and passing him a beer, “Oh my God!”

“I know!” Louis shouts back, because why the fuck not, because they’re all on the brink of hysterical exhaustion and enough tears have been shed tonight to drown them all, so why the fuck not. Louis thinks he might shout forever, or start stripping and dancing on the table in the middle of the room. Maybe he’ll jump off the balcony or bathe in champagne. He doesn’t know, or care, but God. God, he’s so fucking happy right now.

Zayn laughs happily and pulls him in for another hug – because that’s all anyone’s been doing all night, shouting and hugging – smiles into his hair and squeezes him tight before loosening his grip. They’re here. They’ve done it.

And the thing is, Louis loves all these people dearly. Most of the time, anyway. He’s met Liam and Niall through this whirlwind of a year, met Fearne and Aimee, met so many wonderful people who he now honestly counts as his closest friends. Hard not to, considering they’ve all breathed the same air and shared the same happiness and absolute, gutting disappointment for a year.

But with Zayn, it’s different, because he and Zayn have always sort of been a two-for-one deal. They’d left college as slightly disillusioned young Democrats together, moved on into ridiculous, $400,000 a year jobs together; Zayn in law, Louis in PR. And they’d kind of lost contact together, ridiculous codependency fading into a phone call here and there, an email a couple of times a week. But then it had been Zayn who’d come back, who’d knocked on Louis’ door in LA one night with a look that Louis hadn’t seen since college, bright eyed and excited, and said Louis. Louis, pack your shit up, we’ve found him. We’re going to get someone elected President. And Louis’d asked questions, sure, but he’d never considered saying no. And so Zayn took him back to the campaign offices in California (office is too kind, really, it was more a shed), introduced him to Nick, and Louis had been hired within forty-eight hours.

And now they’ve won. Ta da.

So he looks up at Zayn and smiles, cheers and hollers as the replayed speech comes to an end (it had only been three hours ago, up on the stage in front of them, flags flying and hundreds of them screaming, but he and Nick and Zayn and Liam and Niall louder), because fuck. They did it.

“We fucking did it,” he says happily, leaning up to yell into Zayn’s ear because it’s so, so loud, “we fucking did it.”

Zayn nods, and then he leans down to talk to Louis, looking like he’s just seen Christmas.

“Lou, I.” He smiles – beams – and takes Louis by the shoulder. “It just happened. He fucking offered it to me. Like, just now. I’m…Christ, Louis, I’m White House senior staff. Officially.”

Louis’ jaw drops to the floor and he pushes Zayn away, smiling like a moron.

“Why the fuck didn’t you lead with that, you idiot?” he shrieks, “Oh my God,” he says, and because he can’t think of anything else to say, he just says it again, “well fucking done!”

It’s hardly a surprise. They’ve been at the helm of this whole operation for months. No one but Zayn was ever going to be Communications Director. No one but Niall’s going to be his deputy and no one but Liam could possibly be Deputy Chief of Staff. Nick had hired them all – because only the effervescent Nicholas Grimshaw will be White House Chief of Staff, thank you very much – for these specific reasons, because he, more than anyone, believed in the cause. Just like all of them, Louis is pretty much Press Secretary already; there’s no one else for the job but him. Rationally, he knows it, but it’s still nerve wracking, waiting for it to properly happen.

“I’m so fucking proud of you,” he says to Zayn, because maybe he’s had a bit to drink, “Amazing.”

Zayn laughs and rolls his eyes, but Louis knows he’s thinking the exact same thing. “You’ll be up next, Nick’s just taken Liam up to the Governor’s – the President’s, fuck – room now. Anyway, I gotta go find Perrie. I’ll see you in a bit, yeah?” he asks.

Louis raises an eyebrow, finishes his drink. “Can’t imagine I’ll be going anywhere, no,” he says idly, and Zayn flips him off, grinning as he melts back into the crowd.

It’s as the top of his head disappears into the throng of people that Louis sees him. A guy with a moleskine notebook. And, like, maybe it’s because he’s horribly drunk but that surprises him, someone here with a notebook and not a laptop or a tablet. Louis can’t figure it out, because he knows all the campaign reporters like his own family by now. He spends roughly half his day with them, more if they’re doing photo ops and events. But he doesn’t know this guy, so he saunters over to the table he’s sitting at, writing diligently.

“Hi,” he says loudly, obnoxiously, but he’s not too bothered by any of that tonight, “who’re you then?”

Eloquent, as ever. The guy looks a little perplexed, out of his comfort zone, but he smiles at Louis anyway, shakes his hand.

“I’m Harry Styles. Post,” he tacks onto the end, flashing his security pass. Louis cocks his head, confused.

“No,” he says, “no no no. You’re not…you’re not the Post’s reporter. That’s Alex.”

Harry just smiles, like Louis is a five year old and needs to be told the rules, which is so infuriating. “Alex was campaign reporter,” he says politely, “I’m White House reporter. As soon as you won, this became my job.”

“Oh,” Louis says, because even though in two months time it will be his job to talk to a roomful of reporters for a living, he apparently can’t talk to just one tonight. He reminds himself never to give a briefing drunk, if his behaviour tonight is anything to go by. He thinks he probably shouldn’t have to remind himself not to be drunk while representing the White House, but well. Whatever.

“Right,” he says, “sorry. Guess I’ll be seeing—“

“Louis!”

Louis whips his head round at the sound of his name, sees Nick smacking the crowd out of the way to get to him. He motions with a nod of his head for Louis to come over, before retreating back to the lifts amidst congratulatory pats on the back and hugs from staff; right from secretaries to senior Democrats. You’d think Nick had just become President, judging by the reception he’s getting. Louis rolls his eyes, smiles, shakes Harry’s hand again. Because fuck. This is…fuck. This is it. He’s going to go up there and by the time he comes down he’s going to be White House Senior Staff.

“Bye!” he calls cheerily to Harry, and threads his way through the crowd to Nick, who’s holding the lift door open for him.

“Took you long enough, Tomlinson,” he says with a fond eye roll, and Louis can’t be bothered to say anything back. He’s so fucking happy.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, and with that the lift opens with a ding to the penthouse suite of the hotel. Louis doesn’t expect him to be sitting right there, for some reason, because…well, he’s President now, and somehow in Louis’ brain that equates to not being sat in a room where Louis can just see him.

“Governor,” he blurts out with a smile, shaking his hand warmly, “congratulations. Just. Congratulations, the speech was brilliant. It all was.”

“Well, thank Zayn for that,” he says, beaming at Louis, “and not to put a downer on it all, but I believe it’s Mr President, now. Gonna need to remember that, if you’re Press Secretary.”

And Louis doesn’t really hear a lot after that, because yeah. Yeah. Greg James is President of the United States and unless he’s mistaken, he’s the fucking White House Press Secretary.

He doesn’t need to hear much more than that, and he completely forgets about Harry from the Post with his moleskine notebook.

**

Reuters. TIME. AP. San Francisco Chronicle. New York Times. Washington Post.

That’s his front row, his majors. There are four more, bigger rows with infinitely smaller publications to remember as well. His first briefing is in a matter of minutes, the last two months have passed rather quickly and now it’s January 21st and this is his job now. He’s thinks he might resign right now, if only to calm the army of butterflies in his stomach.

Zayn charges into the room with a few memos in hand, tosses them onto the podium where Louis is standing eyeing the as of now empty briefing room. His briefing room.

Okay.

“Today’s mostly going to be about tax reform, I’m thinking, President’s first bill on the floor. Blah blah,” he says idly, tapping out a response to an email on his Blackberry as he talks, before pocketing his phone.

“Right,” he continues, “checklist. Know what our line is for tax, yeah?”

Louis nods a little nervously, takes a sip of water. “Sure,” he says, “President James and the new Administration are keen to see…” he waves his hands, rolls his eyes. “I fucking know it. In addition to being a fantastic speaker,” he says with a smirk and a flourish, “I’ve also been saying the same thing for a year now. Move on.”

Zayn smiles. “Okay, fine. You know your procedure?”

“I’ve only been reading the goddamned press briefing every day since I was seventeen.”

“Touchy,” Zayn notes, “okay. Order the first row for me.”

Louis gulps. He’s maybe not so breezily confident about this part.

“Reuters,” he ventures as a start, “Scott Mills, right? From Reuters?”

Zayn nods. One down, forty odd to go.

“Cardle’s at TIME. Whoever’s here for AP, then…fuck.”

“Chronicle,” Zayn fills in, “Honestly, no one expects you to know ‘em all by now. If you don’t know, just point and say yeah.”

Louis nods. He ignores the voice in the back of his head that says, but you should know it.

“Chronicle, that’s Ferguson. Then the Times, Aiden, that’s fine.” He’d gone to college with Aiden. He’ll ask Aiden the first question, maybe, at least he’ll know his fucking name.

“Perfect, and then at the far right is some new kid from the Post. Harry Styles. That’s his name, I don’t know a lot about him but it should be fine.”

“Harry Styles?” Louis asks, because he remembers that name from somewhere, “Do I know him?”

Zayn furrows his brow. “Dunno. College?”

Louis shakes his head.

“Work?”

“No, don’t think so.”

“Bone him while we were on the road last year?”

“Fuck off,” Louis says with a withering stare, “never mind. Now if you’ll be so kind, I have a briefing room to hold court, so I’m gonna need you to leave.”

Zayn flips him off, but his face softens after a while. “G’luck, Lou. You’re gonna smash it.”

“I know,” he says, but what he really means is thank you, because I’m shit scared, and Zayn knows that, “record it for me, I wanna see playback.”

“You got it,” Zayn calls over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.

Louis tidies the podium and runs a hand through his hair, reads over his notes. He’s got this. He can do this. He’s going to be fine.

Journalists start filing in at five minutes to midday, and once they’re all seated he walks back out to the podium from where he’s been watching behind the door. It’s so odd, because Louis is the newcomer here yet he’s the one in the know, he’s the superior. It’s a strange dynamic, but Louis loves it. He feels a bit funny because this, this is it. This has been the pipe dream since he was seventeen, stuck in that shitty high school with his shitty teachers and shitty classmates and shitty everything. It’s happened, he’s done it, and fuck. Yeah. That’s nice.

“Good morning,” he says, voice a little raised as everyone finds their seats, “or should I say afternoon. I’m not sure, to be honest, but here we all are so let’s get going, then. For those’ve you who have for some unknown reason not learnt my name,” he winks, greeted with a murmured laugh, “I’m Louis Tomlinson and I’m the new White House Press Secretary.”

The journalists gathered give a round of applause at that and Louis smiles a little. Even if they are going to spend the next four years (eight, with any luck) fighting mercilessly with him, this is sweet of them. Kind of like how it’s sweet of a lady spider to have sex with the male before she kills him. Sweet.

“Oh, stop it,” he says dryly, getting a bigger laugh and yeah, this is good, this he can do. “I have no announcements to make, considering we’re still unpacking boxes, so I’ll take your questions.”

The cry of Louis, Louis, Louis goes up from the group, a flurry of hands and clicks and pens. He scans his front row, sees Aiden and smiles.

But then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone else. A young guy with floppy hair and interested eyes and a moleskine notebook. And he remembers now, how he knows Harry Styles, because he just so happened to be the last person Louis talked to before he got this job. And it doesn’t – shouldn’t – seem like much, but it feels funny to Louis, cosmically relevant somehow. And, well, fuck it. His eyes rest on Harry and he points at him with a small smile.

“Harry,” he says evenly, and he doesn’t miss the flicker of surprise in his face, as though Harry’s shocked that he’s remembered his name, two months on.

“Umm. Thanks, Louis, I’ve got one about tax reform and one about the President’s candidate for the UN Ambassador,” he says, surprised smile remaining on his face.

“Go ahead,” Louis says, returning the smile, and they’re off.

**

Their first major crisis occurs eight days in. Which, Louis thinks privately, isn’t too bad, considering they’re running a country.

He wakes up at 3:54am, groggily sitting up as his phone buzzes infuriating loudly next to his bed.

Nick Grimshaw.

Brilliant.

“Yeah,” Louis mumbles, pushing his hair out of his eyes as he answers the phone, “what’s wrong? It’s four in the morning, Nick.”

“And of that I’m well aware,” Nick says curtly, sounding annoyingly awake and game-faced, “I need you in here, you’ll be briefing the press at nine and I need you here now so you know what you’re talking about.”

Louis perks up a little, flicks his lamp on and tries to clear the feeling of sleep from his head.

“What happened?” he asks quickly, shivering slightly against the January cold.

Nick sighs down the phone. He sounds tired already, Louis thinks. Louis only gets a few hours sleep a night; he can’t quite fathom how Nick could be getting less but he must be. Louis’ not sure if he ever goes home, he’s there at five or six in the morning when Louis gets in and he’s there at eleven or twelve when he leaves. And Louis and Nick have their moments; Louis drives him crazy and Nick pushes all of Louis’ buttons and some, but truth be told Louis kind of looks up to him. And – he’ll deny it under oath – but he’d really like to be as astute and shrewd and clever as Nick is one day. Nick is a natural at politics; he has an instinct for every situation. Louis respects that more than he’d like to admit.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he snaps.

(Louis takes back every halfway fond thought he’s ever had about Nick fucking Grimshaw.)

“So why the fuck did you call me?” he asks irritably, tripping over his bedside table as he stands.

“I need you to come in. Now,” he says, and with that he hangs up. Typical.

**

Louis stumbles into the west wing at half past four, collapsing in his office with a cup of coffee and a damp coat. Liam pops his head round the door, looking about as fresh faced as Louis feels.

“D’you know what this is about?” he asks sleepily, and Louis just shakes his head, has a sip of the truly awful instant coffee he’s holding.

“No,” he says, “no idea.” He flicks his eyes down to the mountain of memos and announcements he’s got to sift through today. They can wait till a more godly hour, you know, seven perhaps. “Niall and Zayn here?”

“Yeah,” Liam says, “Fearne and Aimee too. President’s on his way over.”

Louis raises an eyebrow. For all of them to be here this early is unheard of, so far anyway.

“What do you think it is?” he asks, frowning slightly.

Liam just shrugs.

“I don’t know, but we’re gonna have our balls handed to us if we’re not in Nick’s office…” he glances at his watch, “…well, five minutes ago.”

Louis nods, reminds himself to go and buy a bagel after this meeting and follows Liam down the corridor to the office adjacent to the Oval.

As they walk in, it’s not the hive of activity Louis’d been expecting. Niall and Zayn look grave, Fearne too, and Nick is talking to Aimee quietly in the corner. He turns around and looks at them as they walk in, but doesn’t reprimand them for being late.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asks softly, and he can feel the way his brain kicks into overdrive, the way that side of him that is utterly and totally dedicated to this job turns on. Nick bites his lip, and ushers Louis and Liam over. He looks exhausted, Louis thinks, and it’s the last thought that enters his head before Nick opens his mouth.

**

There was a bomb.

And it’s the last time Louis turns up to work without having watched five minutes of CNN, because he walked in blind and he’ll never forget the way his stomach seemed to turn to liquid as Nick told him.

There was a bomb in the foyer of the Pakistani embassy, right here in Washington, about eight minutes before Nick called him. Twenty-seven people died, right here in Washington, in the middle of the night. And Louis feels fucking sick, because they’re people just like him, really. They’re people working for a government salary, doing what they can for their country. People just like Louis. Right here in Washington.

They spend a few minutes in somber silence until the President walks in, looking wildly overtired like the rest of them. He says a few kind words, this almost beautiful mixture of condolence and sincerity and practicality, and Louis remembers in that moment why he’d given so much to this. Greg is one of the most fantastic people he’s ever met, and Louis feels more honoured than usual to be on his team.

Greg and Nick leave for the Situation Room at that, Joint Chiefs following close behind, and there is no choice but to put behind the shock and the grief and to do their jobs. Liam heads back to his office to review the bill he has to negotiate up on the Hill today; Niall continues on the speech the President has to give on climate change on Wednesday, and Zayn and Louis try and wrap their heads around a way to talk about this story in an hour.

Louis is shit scared. Because this isn’t politics, not really. Politics he knows, politics he can do, and talk about without thinking, politics is second nature to him. Politics is elegant and dirty and intellectual and instinctual all at once and Louis loves it, thrives off it.

But this isn’t politics. This is life and death and tragedy and it’s here, home soil. He probably passed some of these people at the Starbucks around the corner. They probably had their dry cleaning done at the 24-hour laundry two blocks over from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And it’s just, it’s a lot, and it’s awful, and Louis has to try and make it coherent and short and rational to a room of forty-odd people who will then pass his comments on to the entire country.

And that scares him more than usual, today.

“Lou,” Zayn says quietly, “Lou, you alright, man?”

Louis lets out a humourless laugh. “No,” he replies truthfully, “but I have to be. So. Let’s do this, then.”

Louis opens his mouth to say something else, but doesn’t know what, so clears his throat and listens as Zayn asks him about who the President relies on most in times of crisis, considering his administration is still so young.

**

If the briefing room is usually a battleground, today it’s apocalyptic.

“Louis!” shouts someone from the back row, “Louis! Will President James address the nation?”

“Louis! Is the President looking into the possibility of this being an internal affair playing out on US soil?”

“Louis! What’s Ellie wearing to the Treasury Ball tonight?”

And he nearly responds to that with a quick two lines that would shut that fucking asshole up for good, but he doesn’t, because he’s so, so overwhelmed right now.

All the journalists are in, every single one, which hasn’t happened before. There are cameras lining the whole back wall, because this will go on proper TV tonight, prime time, not to mention the flashes of still cameras going off every few seconds. The room is in uproar, and they’re only fifteen minutes in.

He sighs, blinks, refocuses. “Cara,” he says, pointing to her in the second row, and the room falls silent after the appropriate amount of grumbling.

“Louis, what has the President put aside for today to focus on this crisis?” she asks. Crisis. Brilliant.

“The President has put aside a meeting with Treasury and his usual weekly defence briefing this morning so his full attention is on this incident,” he responds, “other than that, I can’t give you details of his private schedule.”

“So he’s not putting everything aside?” someone asks, challenging.

“No, I’m just saying, I can’t give you the full rundown of his schedule. The President is taking an much time as is required with this, I assure you,” he says through gritted teeth.

“But Louis—“

“That’s all I have time for this morning,” he says loudly. He just, he can’t do this right now. He’s told them everything they need and there’s a large part of him that hates the way this is being turned into dirty politics, can imagine the smarmy article tomorrow, and he just…he can’t, not right now. “I’ll brief again at 2pm. Thank you for your time.”

He leaves the podium through the right hand door and feels distinctly like he’s failed. And usually he’d go back to his office, watch his playback, get up to date on what he’s missed in the hour he’d been briefing. But today, today he can’t go up there, knowing he’s fucked up his part of this intricate chain.

He goes to the staff cafeteria, sighs and picks up a copy of the Post. He may as well see what he’s missed.

“Enjoying that?” a voice asks, sounding slightly amused. Louis looks up immediately, to see a smiling Harry Styles standing in front of him with two steaming cups of coffee.

Okay, then.

“Hey, Harry,” he says, smile feeling as tired as it probably looks, “look, I’ve really got nothing else for you right now, I’ll be back at two—“

“I’m not here for that, I’ve got my story half done,” Harry says, still smiling; a little sympathy and a little, well, Louis would call it friendliness, but Harry’s a journalist, so that can’t be it. “You just looked a little stressed out this morning.”

Louis opens his mouth to say something terribly witty, but nothing comes out. He’s so tired.

“Yeah,” he says with a soft smile, “you could say that.”

“Coffee, then?” Harry asks, and with that he grabs a chair from the table over and plonks himself down opposite Louis, pushing a cardboard cup his way.

Louis eyes it suspiciously. “What’ve you put in it?”

“Truth serum,” Harry says, rolling his eyes, “truth serum and laxatives. Also I spiked it.”

Louis blinks.

“I’m kidding,” Harry says, “oh my God, sorry. Did I just say that out loud? You…you work for the President of the United States and I just said in the White House that I spiked your drink. I. I don’t even know. I’m sorry.”

It’s Louis’ turn to smile, slightly amused, as Harry turns bright red. “It’s okay, we’ll keep it a secret,” he says with a wink, “but what are you doing bringing me coffee, Harry Styles; spiked or not?”

Harry seems to recompose himself somewhat, takes a sip of his own. “I don’t know,” he says, “but you were really good up there today. That’s all really. Don’t…don’t beat yourself up about it. No one just knows how to deal with stuff like that. And you did well, especially for your first time.”

Louis considers making a first time joke but thinks better of it. This is absurdly sweet. And not in the lady spider fucking the male before she kills it kind of way. He’s just – genuinely, as far as Louis can tell – being lovely.

“I don’t know what to say, to be honest,” he says quietly, “but thank you. Really. How…” he pauses, suddenly interested “how old are you, Harry Styles?”

Harry smiles, seems unsurprised at the question. He looks awfully young, he probably gets it a lot. “You can just call me Harry, you know. But I’m twenty-seven.”

Louis lets out an impressed whistle. “Twenty-seven and already the Post’s White House reporter. Bit young for that, aren’t you?”

“Eh. This is a stopover job. I’m waiting for Foreign Correspondent.” Louis laughs at that, of course he’d be ambitious too. Of course he’d be one of the three journalists in the world for whom working in the White House is a stopover. Harry seems to pause, consider him. “Bit young to be White House Press Secretary, aren’t you?”

Louis ponders that for a moment, eyes Harry playfully, quizzically. “Not according to him,” he says with a smile, pointing at the picture of the President that hangs in the room.

Harry just snorts.

“You’re sort of a prick, aren’t you?” he asks, much to Louis’ amusement.

“Make no mistake about it, Harry, I am the biggest prick in this building. Coincidentally, I also have—“

His pager starts buzzing furiously on the desk; it’s Nick. He grimaces.

“Make that the second biggest,” he mutters, before sighing, gulping down the rest of his coffee. “I have to go,” he says, “but honestly. Thank you, for this. Even if you are just doing it in the vain hope I’ll leak you something good…thank you.”

Harry stands and puts his coat on as Louis does, picks his notebook up from the table.

“No problem,” he says, “we should do it again sometime.”

And Louis thinks that no, probably, they shouldn’t. Harry is a member of his press gallery. They’re working in the White House. And even getting a up of coffee together can be misconstrued as a million different things, can make people angry and accuse him of favouritism and partiality and get him – well, both of them – into all sorts of unnecessary trouble. But Harry’s looking at him with this lovely, earnest smile on his face and Louis knows how to read people. And he’s pretty sure Harry’s being nothing but utterly honest here.

So no, they probably shouldn’t do this again sometime.

“Definitely,” Louis says in spite of his brain telling him wrong answer, and Harry gives a small laugh and turns to make his way out of the cafeteria as Louis spots his pen still on the table. And usually he’d let it go, but it’s a nice pen, like a present people get from family members when they graduate college, expensive and ink and Louis’ pretty sure it’s engraved.

“Harry,” he calls across the room, “you forgot this.”

Harry trots back to him with a shake of his head, rolls his eyes.

“Early morning,” he says by way of explanation, taking the pen from Louis’ hand, and Louis is sure he’s not imagining the way Harry’s fingers linger near his. Harry pauses in front of him, looks at him for a moment before taking a napkin from the dispenser on the table.

“Just in case you ever need someone to buy you another overpriced caffeine shot,” Harry says as he writes, ink bleeding across the napkin but numbers still legible, “here.”

He hands the napkin to Louis and, like, Louis has all the journalist’s numbers in a drawer in his office. Harry must know that. But he takes it nonetheless, because fuck, it’s been a God awful morning and it’s not like it means anything. Harry’s just nice. Nice people trade numbers all the time. It’s nice.

“Thank you,” he says, but Harry’s already half way across the room.

Louis puts any fondness down to exhaustion and goes back to his office. He does, however, keep that napkin.

**

It’s not that it becomes a thing. It’s just that it becomes a thing.

“Louis!” Nick shouts a week after Louis’ impromptu coffee definitely-not-date with Harry Styles, bursting into his office.

“Yes,” Louis says tiredly, looking up before smiling disgustingly wide, “whatever can I do for you?”

“Shut up. I need you to start leaking a story.”

Louis thought this was going to be about his penchant for stealing Nick’s favourite highlighters. Apparently not.

“Oh,” he says, work mode kicking in, “yeah, sure. Sure, to who, what do I need to say?”

Nick takes a seat at the table in Louis’ office, sorts through a few pieces of paper and finds a bundle for Louis.

“Basically, it’s about the Immigration Reform bill. We’re going to introduce it to the floor early and I need that to be out there so that when we do it, oh so surprisingly, there are people out there who’ve done their research. Know what they’re talking about.”

Louis nods. “Yeah, I can do that. Who d’you want me to talk to?”

Nick shrugs, engrossed in his Blackberry. “Whoever you want, someone who writes for a major. Whoever you want.”

So Louis calls Harry. It makes sense; he has his number on a napkin in his briefcase.

“Hey,” Harry says half an hour later, slipping onto a bar stool next to Louis. They’re at a place a few blocks south of the White House; Louis’d thought it prudent to perhaps do this outside those walls. “Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you, to be honest.”

“Why’s that?”

“I imagine you’ve got a lot going on.”

Louis laughs. “A fair bit of that is dealing with all of you lot running riot, you know that right?”

Harry smiles, offers him half a biscuit, which he takes.

“So. What’ve you get for me, Mr Press Sec?” he asks with an exaggerated wink, and Louis just shakes his head disbelievingly.

“Call me that again and I’ll give it to the Times instead, Styles,” he says primly, “I’ve got a leak for you, though. It’s gonna go public come Wednesday, you can publish tomorrow. When you publish, it comes from a senior White House source. Deal?”

Harry nods, pulls his notebook out.

“Deal,” he says. It only takes Louis ten minutes to talk him through it. Somehow, though, they end up spending an hour at the café. Louis doesn’t think too much about it.

“So,” Harry says as they stand to leave, “Second date, and all that, do I get your number too?”

Louis just about drops the twenty-dollar bill he’s pulling out of his wallet, eyes darting to Harry, who’s smiling easily.

“You have my number,” he says, “it’s in, like, every drawer in your office.”

“Yeah, but if I want to buy you coffee again, I don’t want to call through your secretary.”

Louis narrows his eyes playfully, and Harry laughs.

“Fine,” he says, “but if you start harassing me and I have to get it changed, I’ll have you fired before you can blink.”

Harry just grins, hands his phone over to Louis. Louis pauses for a second, because possibly he shouldn’t be doing this. This is maybe a bad idea.

He puts it in anyway, and he feels the blush go right to his toes as Harry sends him a text an hour later – hiiii. just wanted to say hi. you should invent a crisis or something because i’m bored. wait. is this harassment?

They get coffee twice more and by the second time they drop all pretence of work. Harry texts Louis one Saturday saying he’s bored writing an editorial and would Louis like to come to his place in the south of the city because he knows a nice café there.

And Louis is equally as bored reading over the President’s speech on values or attitudes or something equally as abstract and awful for Monday, so texts back yeah, why not? see you in half an hour! (He forgoes an x, for no reason other than this is his work phone and he’d rather IT didn’t see that.)

Harry wears tight jeans and a loose white shirt and has headphones looped round his neck. Louis teases him for looking like a dreadful hipster and Harry just shrugs because, well, by his own admission he is one, although still somehow knows all the words to the rubbish Kesha song playing overhead. Louis’ fascinated by him. He pushes that thought aside though, and drinks his latte.

Louis resolves that they probably shouldn’t do that again, and for a week he really does keep it strictly professional. He’s too busy to text his sisters, let alone a reporter in his briefing room, and any downtime he has is spent sleeping, not over leisurely cups of coffee. It’s fine. It’s under control. He’s a professional.

So when he bumps into him the next Saturday, they honestly are just both in the staff gym early in the morning; if one good thing comes from this job it’s that he can survive on very little sleep. Louis’ on his way out, breathing a little heavily, singlet stuck to his back with sweat and hair pushed messily off his face. He’s wiping his face with a towel when he crashes into Harry walking in, who gives a small yelp of fright. Louis bursts into laughter as Harry tears his ear buds out.

“Christ, Louis,” Harry says, laughing a little embarrassedly, “scared the shit out of me.”

Louis laughs, takes a swig of water. “Yeah, well. Wasn’t expected to walk straight into anyone at this time of day.” He glances at the clock, it’s just gone 7am. He cocks his head, eyes Harry suspiciously. “Why are you here, anyway? Doesn’t the Post have a lovely gym where you can work out free from, you know, our lot?”

They glance over to the corner where an overweight Congressman is lifting weights. The only reason Louis isn’t laughing is because they really do need the numbers to pass the Immigration Act through the House, and Louis isn’t about to fuck that up, not even for Harry Styles’ amusement.

“Nah,” Harry says, “I like it here better.”

“How come?”

Harry smiles a little too knowingly, for Louis’ liking. “Machines are better,” he says idly, almost challenging.

“Oh yeah? What else?”

“Cafeteria.”

“Of course.”

“Also hotter clientele,” Harry says brazenly, and Louis nearly chokes on his own surprise but he’ll not Harry get the better of him.

“Yeah,” he replies evenly, before dropping his tone to a whisper, “Congressman’s looking good today.”

They get coffee. Louis ignores the fact that Harry skips his workout altogether.

**

The next two weeks bring with them an inexplicable loss of approval ratings on the west coast so they begrudgingly pack up camp mid-March and head over for a four-day tour of California. They’re hitting seven cities, covering off everything from schools to hospitals to businesses to homeless shelters, and Louis’ll be damned if they don’t get five points up by the next poll.

It’s just that it’s five thirty in the morning and they’re on the tarmac and it’s a little early for roaring engines in his face.

“Fuck,” Niall grumbles as they walk up the stairs and onto the plane. Privately, Louis never gets over that, that he’s walking onto Air Force One. It’s fantastic. “Fuck, it’s so fucking early,” Niall moans. Louis just grins.

“Sparkle up, sunshine, we’ve got a whole coast to charm,” he says, “could use our token California boy looking sprightly.”

“Yeah, you try writing a speech on Californian industry and it’s importance to the President and see how sprightly you feel.”

“Touchy,” Louis notes idly, “listen, when can I give it to the press to look at?”

They sit down in their seats for take off and Niall seems a little more interested in proceedings, which makes Louis nervous.

“Give us an hour, Zayn wants to look over it. Speaking of the press, though,” Niall says, “you and that Post boy seem to be getting on quite well. Styles, isn’t it?”

Louis swallows, concentrates hard on the paper in front of him. It’s the President’s schedule, he’s read it a thousand times, but whatever. Niall doesn’t know that.

“Yeah, that’s his name,” he says casually, “he’s a good leak, y’know, trustworthy.”

Niall nods. “Riiiight. Good leak. What’s he like on a treadmill?”

Louis can’t help looking up in surprise. No one was even at the gym that day. Niall seems sufficiently pleased with himself that he’s gotten a reaction, smiles smugly as he tightens his seatbelt.

“We went to see Congressman Turner yesterday, he mentioned seeing the two of you,” he says, “look, man, I’m not prying or anything. But you know how it looks, right, to people, if you’re hanging out with the press?”

Louis presses his lips together in a thin line. “We’re not hanging out,” he says shortly, “we ran into each other. It’s not a big deal.”

“I know that,” Niall says gently, and the thing is Louis knows he’s only saying it to look out for him, “it’s just. Be careful, Lou. Don’t get attached, or anything. He’s press. He’s not—“

“I’m not attached,” Louis says, “I’m not…it’s not anything. It’s just—“

“Louis!”

Niall and Louis both look down the cabin to where a certain curly haired journalist is sticking his head out through the door to the press quarters.

“You promised me a window seat, fucking Aiden’s taken it. Help me out?” he asks, batting his eyelashes playfully, and Louis maybe wishes this plane would go down in flames or they’d suffer a lack of oxygen so Niall wouldn’t remember this. Instead of those events occurring, he smiles tightly and stands up just as the seatbelt sign goes off.

“Gotta go tend to the children,” he says to Niall, smile falsely bright, “you better give Zayn that speech. Coming, Harry,” he shouts down the cabin.

He can’t help but flick his eyes to Niall’s face as he goes. He can’t read it. He’s not sure that’s good.

He walks into the briefing room where Harry and Aiden are all but grappling for the front left window seat. It sometimes concerns Louis that these are the people responsible for informing four hundred million people about their government.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he proclaims loudly, “all of you. But I promised Harry a window seat, so get lost, Grimshaw.”

Aiden looks thoroughly unimpressed as Harry smugly climbs over him and sits down.

“Thanks, Lou,” he says with a smile, before yelling as Aiden hits him in the ribs.

He wants to say no problem, but if the way he can feel himself gazing fondly at Harry is anything to go by, it really, really is.

**

So Niall has noticed. If Niall’s noticed, other people probably have too. He should knock it off.

He doesn’t.

It just, it doesn’t seem important. Harry’s a really, really nice guy. He’s funny and smart and they have the same interests, and it’s refreshing to be around someone who doesn’t care about his job, doesn’t think he’s going to report them to the President should they say something out of line. Even Louis’ mother has asked if their phone conversations are being recorded; it’s exhausting. He and Harry don’t talk about work anyway, hardly ever, except when he’s sent with a leak or they’re actually in the briefing room. And if he lets Harry ask one or two more questions than the others, it’s for no reason other than strategy. The Post are arguably the most important publication in that room. It makes sense to let their journalist have the floor more often than the others.

Or something.

Somehow, Louis justifies his newfound friendship with Harry Styles, Washington Post. Somehow he convinces himself it’s not a conflict of interest and somehow he rationalizes his way out of feeling guilty.

The rest of March is busy and by the time April hits Louis is just about ready to drop dead with exhaustion. It’s been just over two months and Louis thinks that he’s spent more hours awake in that time than the rest of his life combined. He’s pretty sure he’s read more legislation and negotiated his way out of more press nightmares and charmed his way into the (metaphorical) pants of more Congressmen and women too. He’s so fucking tired.

And it is of course a completely innocuous day that Harry decides to ask him for more than a coffee.

It’s 10pm and most of the staff have gone home, save Nick, Niall, Liam, Zayn and Louis, a few journos here and there. The President is reading material for a college talk tomorrow in the Residence, security are changing over, and it’s that part of the evening that Louis likes. It’s quiet, relaxed; they can put some music on and loosen their ties and do a productive couple of hours work before going home for their compulsory four hours of sleep. (It’s a new rule Nick’s put in place, after that time Liam forgot to sleep for three days and fell asleep in a meeting with the Vice President’s staff. Louis half hates Nick and half loves him for it.)

“Oi! Zayner, turn this shit off, would you, how am I supposed to get excited about trade deals in South East Asia with this echoing through my head?”

Zayn stalks into his office reproachfully a few seconds later, glaring over a box of Chinese food.

“This,” he says through a mouthful of honey chicken, “is a brilliant song. Don’t knock it just because you’re uneducated.”

It’s some of that God forsaken introspective, wanky RnB shit Zayn likes. Louis got an earful of this right through college, in Zayn’s leather-jacket-and-tortured-expression days, and he certainly doesn’t need it again now.

“I just want to listen to Beyonce,” Louis says, maybe a little whiny, “we always listen to this shit you like.”

“Just for that comment, you’re not getting any honey chicken,” Zayn says smugly, “And I outrank you, so the answer to Beyonce is no.”

He walks out of Louis’ office at that and Louis considers hurling his stapler at him, but decides against it.

“Well the answer should be yes. She voted for us, you know!” Louis yells, and is met with no response other than Zayn turning the music up. Fantastic.

He sighs, phones for pizza from across the road, and settles back in to read his material for morning briefing. He feels himself dozing off when there’s a small knock on his door.

“C’m in,” he mutters, not taking his eyes off the paper. He’s read this sentence four times, he’s determined to understand it on the fifth.

“Hey.”

It’s Harry, sliding into the chair opposite his desk with a sleepy smile. All thoughts of South East Asian trade leave Louis’ mind, which is unfortunate, because he’ll have to read that sentence again.

“Hi, Haz,” he says, surprised, barely registering that he’s using a nickname, for God’s sake, “what…what can I do for you?”

“Very professional,” Harry notes idly, fiddling with the paperweight on Louis’ desk, “no, I was just thinking, it’s late and we’re going to be here for a while, with all this submarine stuff.”

(Louis has, truth be told, kind of forgotten about that. A submarine went quiet, fell off the radar, in Russian waters today. Nick is sure it’ll turn up again, so Louis’d sort of…forgotten. He feels awful, for a moment, but is then too tired to sustain it.)

“Right,” he says, “of course. The submarine.”

“Yeah. Anyway, d’you want to get a drink, Louis? Just. You know.” Harry looks nervous, almost, and Louis doesn’t like that. “To kill some time.”

Louis opens his mouth to answer no. Instead he hears himself say, “sure, why not?”

They grab their coats and Harry looks kind of like Christmas as he starts telling Louis about a friend he caught up with today, and Louis feels himself smiling too, bites his lip to try and hide it. Harry’s only been here three minutes and it’s already the highlight of his day. And then Nick walks in, and well, fuck.

He blinks, looks between them once, and then twice. Louis feels like a kid caught writing on the desk in middle school.

“Hi?” Nick says, a little confusedly, “not that I’m not delighted to see you, Styles,” he says, and Louis sometimes forgets they were at college together for a year, “but why are you here?”

“We’re just getting a drink,” Harry says offhandedly, “listen, Lou, I’ll meet you downstairs if you two need to talk. Be quick,” he smiles, and then he’s gone. Louis faintly hears the elevator ding open.

“A drink,” Nick says slowly, as soon as Harry’s out of earshot, “with a reporter.”

Louis wants to die.

“Yeah. He…he missed the briefing today. I said I’d fill him in. Post, and all, thought it was important.”

Nick looks him up and down for a moment. Louis is distinctly aware he’s lying to his boss, who happens to be the White House Chief of Staff. This feels very, very stupid.

“Louis-“ Nick says warily, raising his eyebrows.

“Nick,” Louis says equally as wary, raising his eyebrows.

They stare at each other pointedly for a moment, both trying to convey their various messages and warnings with their eyes. It seems to work.

“Be back by eleven,” Nick settles on saying, easing the sudden tension, “I need you to go and see the President about this trade agreement tonight.”

“Okay,” Louis says.

He’s fairly sure that should’ve scared him enough not to go for this drink. He’s lied, properly lied. There was no reason to lie, not really, but he’d still felt he had to. That’s…not good. But he thinks of Harry in the lobby, waiting for him, and he just. He can’t say no.

They go to a small place away from those frequented by politicians and staffers, Harry orders a gin and tonic and Louis has a beer. And if Louis finds it slightly endearing that Harry knows all the words to the appalling seventies soundtrack playing overhead, if he thinks it at all cute that Harry keeps yawning and if it turns him on in the slightest that Harry’s leg keeps brushing against his underneath the table, he resolutely does not think about it.

**

Louis is standing on a table with a vodka tonic half in his hand and half spilling over his arm.

It’s one in the morning on a Friday night and normally he’d be crashed out in his flat or upstairs working furiously over a box of noodles, but not tonight. Tonight he’s absolutely shit faced in the lower floor of offices, rapping Gold Digger.

About all he remembers right now is that the President’s candidate for the Supreme Court got elected by that fractional margin that they were holding out for. They got Caroline Flack elected to the Supreme Court; and God only knows how much of a long shot candidate she was but they did it. Greg’s thrilled, so is Nick. Zayn’s over the moon, because this has been his Big Thing over the last few weeks, and Louis can see him watching on half resignedly, half happily as Louis hits the final chorus.

“Get down girl, go head get down” Louis drawls, winking ridiculously at Niall in the corner, before the last line kicks in, “Get down girl, go head.”

He laughs as the song cuts to an end and the whole office fills with applause; he’s quite aware he’s utterly ridiculous but the alcohol making his head spin is enough to erase any shame. He jumps off the table shakily, Liam half catching him, half laughing into his shoulder, and Louis can see that even Nick’s loosened up a little, is drinking and laughing along with everyone else.

They deserve this, really. It’s been a hard few weeks; polls not going their way, a few tough breaks in the press, a fuck up here and there when introducing bills to the floor. It’s been long and grueling and with very little reward so this, this is their night.

Louis stumbles to the bar with a laugh at the very drunk secretaries hollering their very drunk praise at him. He loves this job. He loves all these people. Hell, he even loves Nick. He loves winning and he loves vodka. Vodka is good. He wants more vodka.

“You want another?”

He turns on his heel to see a flushed and smiley Harry Styles beaming at him, gesturing to the empty glass in his hand.

“Harry Styles!” he shouts, “Harry from the Post and the coffee shop and the gym!”

“Louis from the briefing room and the bar and that awfully big office upstairs,” he replies, before gesturing to the table Louis was standing on moments before, “can I ask what that was all about?”

Louis laughs, feels a blush rising to his cheeks, but it’s not unpleasant, he’s not embarrassed, he’s just really quite happy and Harry is really quite lovely to look at.

“It’s a tradition,” he says, as though describing the sacred rituals of an ancient tribe, “whenever something goes well I get shitfaced and rap.”

“I like it,” Harry says with a smile, “Kanye would be proud.”

“Kanye would be very proud,” Louis says, pointing an accusatory finger, “The proudest. Don’t get all sarcastic on me, Styles, I invented sarcasm.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic!” He holds his hands up as though surrendering. “Promise.”

Louis keeps glaring, raises an eyebrow.

“C’mon,” Harry says, laughing, “let me buy you a drink to apologise.”

So they get another drink. They get three, in fact, and down two complimentary shots, and by the time Louis knocks back the last one Harry’s eyes are shiny and bright and his laugh is liquid and Louis wants to kiss him.

“Hi,” he says with a smile, as Harry winces, vodka coursing down his throat, “you enjoy that?”

Harry shakes his head, wiping a hand across his mouth. “No,” he slurs, “s’disgusting. I can’t feel my mouth.”

Louis grins and pulls him in by the arms of his chair, nearly tipping him onto the floor. Harry yelps, a little, but settles just an inch from Louis’ face and quiets down. Louis can feel his hair ticking his forehead, can hear him breathing, can see the green in his eyes. He’s so, so pretty.

“Hi.” It’s Harry’s turn to say it this time, and he smiles as he does, lifts a hand to brush Louis’ messy fringe out of his eyes. “You look quite good tonight, do you know that?”

He smiles as Louis tries, ridiculously, to look himself up and down, before putting a finger under Louis’ chin, locking eyes with him.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he stage whispers, giggling into Louis’ neck for a second, all warm breath and smelling like alcohol and soap, “I kinda want to kiss you.”

Louis nudges his head up from where it’s buried in his shoulder, breath hitching as Harry bites his neck for the smallest of moments.

“I kinda wanna kiss you too,” he says, eyes locked on Harry’s lips, the way they smile and part and close as he laughs, “d’you wanna get out of here?”

He glances around the room at that, can see Zayn and Perrie talking in the corner; Liam and Niall all but passed out on the couch. Nick is nowhere to be seen; and everyone else has either gone home or is too busy singing along to the crap soundtrack trickling through the room. All of that, however, pales in comparison to the fact that Harry’s hands are now resting just above his knees, kneading into his thighs and making his whole body go weak.

“Sure,” Harry says, and he presses his fingers into Louis’ skin one last time before prising Louis’ hands from his chair, standing up, and walking backwards to the exit, grinning at Louis the whole time.

They step out onto the street, laughing because they’ve actually gotten away with this, and this is one of those times Louis thinks he might believe in God because a cab is waiting right out front.

“18th and Potomac,” he mumbles at the driver, throwing twenty dollars at him preemptively. He doesn’t even think about getting his change, because he’s dragging Harry Styles, Washington Post into the back of a cab, can hear him laughing and tripping over his own feet as he gets in and shuts the door. The cab starts off down Pennsylvania Avenue and Louis waits until the White House is out of sight before he tears his eyes from Harry’s, slides over the middle seat and sits straight in Harry’s lap, biting his lip with a small smile.

“Forward of you,” Harry notes wryly, and Louis just rolls his eyes, because God, he wants this so much. He laughs, for a short moment, before wriggling forward in Harry’s lap, pressing his hands to his waist and sealing their lips together.

And, yeah. Yeah, all the alcohol in the world doesn’t feel as good as this, Louis thinks. Harry arches up almost immediately to kiss him properly, smiling against Louis’ lips as Louis ducks down from his vantage point on Harry’s lap to suck at his bottom lip. He runs a hand through Harry’s hair, keeps one on his waist, as Harry holds his lower back, palms his ass and pulls him in closer.

Harry licks into his mouth messily, breathing hard, groaning as Louis presses down into him and slides his tongue over Harry’s. Harry pulls back and huffs out a laugh, pointing at the rearview mirror where Louis has no doubt they’re getting a look or two. He doesn’t bother turning to check though, takes Harry’s word for it and presses their foreheads together.

“You’re not half bad, Harry Styles,” he notes breathily, “if you wrote half as well as you kiss maybe the Post would—“

“Oh for fuck’s sake, do you ever shut up?” Harry asks, and before Louis has time to answer incredibly wittily, Harry takes his jaw roughly and kisses him again, this time with a little more intent, a little more urgency.

And, okay. Louis can do this.

They don’t hear it the first time the driver clears his throat, and it’s only as the cab comes to a complete stop that Louis registers they’re at his place. With a disgruntled little moan, he gets off Harry’s lap and opens the door, pulling Harry out of the cab and into the mild air with him.

Harry stays close as Louis fiddles with the lock on the door of the building, kissing and biting at his neck, laughing low and long in his ear. It’s all Louis can do not to pass out there and then, eyes fluttering shut of their own accord as Harry holds his waist, runs his hands to meet at Louis’ tummy where he holds him tight, muzzles into his hair.

“Jesus,” Louis whispers as they get inside, and he thanks God and Buddha and everyone in between that he didn’t put his alarm on this morning, the door to his ground floor apartment creaking open as Harry all but throws him inside. He doesn’t even wait for Louis to turn on a light as he pushes him roughly up against the wall, strips him of his jacket and loosens his tie, dives right back in to continue where they left off.

Louis arches up onto his toes, lets Harry push him back onto the wall and kiss him till his lips hurt, till he can feel Harry hard and pressing into him and getting him hard too. He grabs Louis’ hands with a groan and holds them above his head, locked into the wall as he presses himself into him and kisses him dead.

“Oh my God,” Harry mutters into his neck, breathing hard, “oh my God, you’re so fucking gorgeous.”

Louis laughs, deeper than he’d expected, and he realizes in that moment how turned on he is, how much he wants this. With the last ounce of strength he has left in him – Harry’s tall, and strong, and it takes quite a bit of effort to move against him – he prises his hands out of Harry’s and spins him round so he’s pressed up against the wall instead, dropping to his knees as gracefully as he can muster with half the White House’s supply of alcohol in his blood.

He pushes Harry’s trousers and briefs down roughly, whimpering a little as he sees the sight in front of him, Harry’s cock hard and pink and just fucking waiting for him. It’s been a long time, if he’s being honest; between campaigning and preparing for office and doing this job that requires all his waking hours and some, he’s not had a lot of time to go and get laid. And now he’s got a hand on each of Harry’s thighs, his cock slapping up against his stomach, and tonight it’s all Louis’ and that’s just really, really fucking brilliant.

He drops kisses from Harry’s left hipbone across to his right, down the line of his stomach and then finally to the base of his cock; Harry all but begging for it as Louis licks a hot, wet stripe down the underside. Harry groans impatiently, hands threading through Louis’ hair as he tries to keep upright, and Louis’ reminded with startling clarity how much he likes doing this, and how much he’s fucking missed it.

“You’ve a really nice dick,” he slightly slurs to no one really but himself, kneading his fingers into the flesh of Harry’s inner thighs. Harry huffs out a laugh, nudges his hips up so his cock bumps Louis’ lips, smearing precome over his mouth.

“Rude,” Louis notes, staring up at Harry, and before he has time to respond Louis smiles a little wantonly, presses an open mouthed kiss to the head of Harry’s cock and takes him down.

Harry’s whole body shudders at the touch of Louis’ mouth, and Louis has to hold his hips in place against the wall, thumbs digging into the sensitive skin just below Harry’s jutting out hipbones. He sucks him shallowly at first, Harry petting and tugging at his hair, before hollowing his cheeks and letting Harry hit the back of his throat. He almost gags, at first, but takes a breath, opens his throat up, and yeah. Yeah, he thinks with a small sense of pride, he’s still got it. Harry mewls as Louis’ nose hits his stomach, tugging on a fistful of Louis’ hair like it’s the only thing keeping him on the ground. Louis’ achingly hard, moving his head between Harry’s legs like he was born to do it, and takes his right hand from Harry’s hip to unzip his own trousers and wrap a hand around his cock.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Harry groans, hips arching up against his own will. Louis doesn’t stop him though, let’s himself enjoy this, the way his eyes start watering as Harry rocks his hips, focuses on stroking himself in time with the way his mouth moves.

“Lou,” Harry stutters, “fuck, Louis, I’m gonna come.”

Louis pulls off with a filthy wet noise, looks up at Harry’s hooded eyes with a smile. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to, just swirls his tongue round Harry’s cock and as he sees his eyes roll back in his head from pure bliss, he takes Harry back into his mouth, come hitting the back of his throat like clockwork.

Louis comes not ten seconds later, flicks his wrist a few final times before crying out and burying his head against Harry’s thigh, biting at him as relief courses through him. Harry strokes a hand over his face shakily before helping him up, pulling him in by the waist and just looking at him for a second.

“You’re so fucking amazing,” Harry says, eyes looking like they’re about to fall out of his head. Louis just laughs, a little out of breath.

“You’re telling me that after I’ve just sucked you off?” he rasps, voice completely shot, and he sees the way Harry’s eyes darken at the sound of it, “I’m flattered.”

“Shut up,” Harry says, pressing his lips to Louis’, licking into his mouth and kissing him for a moment, hands impossibly gripping Louis’ hips and curling into his lower back all at once, nearly meeting. “Do you have somewhere else we can do this, or am I gonna have to fuck you up on this wall?”

And Louis’ pretty sure it’s his turn to look like his eyes are about to pop out, so he turns from Harry and leads him by the hand up the dark hall, not bothering to flick the lights on.

**

It’s a miracle Louis makes it to the bathroom before he throws up, tripping over a shoe and a belt before he dives for the toilet.

“Fuck,” he groans to no one but himself, wiping his hand across the back of his mouth and chugging a few gulps of water from an old bottle in the bathroom. It only makes his stomach twist even more, and he makes it the one step over to the toilet by a hair’s breadth. He’s not been this hungover since the day after the election. With a shaky breath, he stands again, surveys the damage he’s done to himself in the mirror. God. He looks ridiculous, hair all over the place, eyes tired, unshaven, naked—

Naked. He’s naked. He’s not usually naked. As a general rule, he doesn’t wake up naked. He’s a big believer in the pajama bottom. Naked is not his default setting.

The next few seconds play out somewhat as if he were watching a car crash from afar; he can see it coming but has no way to stop it. He touches a finger gingerly to a bruise he sees on his neck and as he pushes it, remembers exactly why his clothes are flung all through the apartment, why he looks so thoroughly fucked out, why he’s standing naked and hungover in his bathroom feeling like death’s come knocking fifty-odd years early.

The President’s candidate for the Supreme Count got elected. He danced on a table. Then he took Harry Styles home.

Fuck. Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

“Fuck,” he hisses into the mirror, backing out of his bathroom like something out of a movie, surveying the scene in his bedroom. There are clothes strewn everywhere, a lamp knocked over, and a person-shaped indent in both sides of his mattress. He picks up his boxers in abject horror.

“Fuck.”

“You’ve said that three times in a minute, Lou, aren’t you meant to be eloquent for a living?”

Louis nearly throws up all over again at the sight of Harry fucking Styles standing in the doorway, grinning as he sips a cup of coffee. He is, ridiculously, wearing nothing but his briefs. God.

His face falls, just a little, at Louis’ silence. “Louis?” he says, eyes growing wary, “Louis, don’t freak out, okay, it’s not a big deal, I’m not going to tell—“

“You need to go,” he says hoarsely (his voice is barely there, he doesn’t want to think about why), because there is no other thought entering his mind right now. Harry is a reporter in his briefing room. He wonders who saw them leave last night, wonders if they were already photographed; God knows Louis was in no position to be subtle. He wonders if there are already cameras poised outside to see Harry walk out. If it’s online yet, if the story’s already broken, if Nick saw, if the President saw. If the press corps are already writing their exclusives, waiting to grill him first thing on Monday.

He swallows, because he thinks he really might vomit on Harry’s jeans right in front of him.

“Louis—“

“No,” he says, and he’s never felt worse, seeing the hurt, furrowed look on Harry’s face, but he has no choice, “Harry, you need to leave. We might’ve already been seen. You need to get out. Now.”

“If they’ve already seen us, there’s no rush—“

“Harry.”

There is a pause; Harry opens his mouth to argue but Louis just closes his eyes, bites his thumbnail. He won’t do this now. Harry seems to understand that.

“Fine,” he says, and Louis can see it, the way he looks vaguely vacant, sad, annoyed, “fine, I’m leaving. Do you mind if I get dressed first?”

Louis detects just the slightest hint of malice in his voice. It makes him want to cry.

“Of course,” he mutters, and ducks around Harry to leave him to get dressed very much alone.

Harry walks out ten minutes later, fully clothed thank God, not quite meeting Louis’ eye. He stands somewhat haplessly in the living room.

“Louis,” he starts, voice a little croaky, “can we at least talk about this? It’s…it’s not just gonna go away if—“

“Not now,” Louis says a little desperately. He needs him gone, just for a bit, just so he can clear his head. “I’m sorry, Harry. I really am. But you know…you know this can’t happen. It’s been one time too many and if we get out of this unscathed it’s going to be a miracle. You…I think it’s best if you just go.”

And he hates it, hates seeing the way Harry tries to compose himself and fails miserably, hates the way he won’t even let himself look at Harry for too long. He’s not in the business of making people feel like shit, unless they’re Republicans, and even then he chooses his battles. He’s certainly not in the business of making lovely, charming young reporters feel like cheap whores that he’s used for a night and tossed out.

The look on Harry’s face, however, says that today, maybe he is in that business. It makes him feel about a million times worse than his hangover, and it’s a nightmare of a hangover.

“Okay,” Harry says quietly, “okay. Bye, then. There’s coffee…” he stops, laughs for a moment and Louis thinks he’s laughing at himself, which only makes it worse. “I made coffee.”

He sounds listless. Louis wants to give him a hug, but can’t. Not anymore. He can’t.

He opens the door and Harry walks out wordlessly, slams it shut behind him. Louis takes a breath before sliding down the wall and staring vacantly at the painting opposite.

Fuck.

**

Louis’ never dreaded going to work so much as he does come Monday. He takes as long as he can in the shower, spends an inordinate amount of time choosing his outfit, even for him, and by the time he’s out the door he’s running twenty minutes late but doesn’t care, because he absolutely does not want to go to work.

He can’t bear it, can’t take it if people know, if he walks in there and people are looking at him oddly, eyeing him up and down, if the people that work for him – researchers, secretaries – are gossiping in their lunch breaks; did you see them, did you see Louis take the reporter home?

Fortunately, his trip up to his office is pushed back even further as he walks through the security doors and into the foyer, by a stone faced Zayn dragging him into the first floor bathrooms without a word.

They stare at each other for a very long time, and Louis feels distinctly like a naughty kid in preschool.

“Hi,” he says weakly, and that’s all it takes for Zayn to go off.

“Christ,” he says, “that’s it? You take Harry fucking Styles home on Friday night, don’t call me all weekend and greet me with a hi?”

Louis doesn’t respond, except to look around frantically to check if anyone else is in the bathroom. They’re not.

“Also, you’re late,” Zayn says primly, and Louis can’t help but glance at his watch at that.

“It’s six thirty in the morning,” he says.

“Yeah, and this is the White House, Louis, not a fucking shift at Walgreen’s.”

“I know that,” Louis says quietly, casting his eyes down from the disappointment in Zayn’s, because he can’t see that. From Nick, he’d understand, Nick is his boss. But Zayn’s his best friend, and to see him looking like that makes Louis want to punch himself in the face.

“Well evidently you don’t,” Zayn says, trying hard to keep his voice even, “because White House senior staff don’t go taking members of the press corps home, Louis, Jesus.”

Louis closes his eyes, in the vain hope that it’ll all go away. It doesn’t. “Does everyone know?” he asks quietly, and Zayn laughs humourlessly.

“No,” he says, “no, Lou, I covered for you. I saw you both getting your coats and I made sure everyone was inside when you left out the front entrance, in case you forgot that part. Said the President was giving a toast, or something. Bloody nightmare when they found out I was lying.”

Louis wants to kiss him. He loves Zayn. He makes a mental note to buy Zayn the best Christmas present he can possibly muster this year. Maybe he’ll buy him Christmas.

“I love you,” he says weakly, “Zayn. Zayn, you’re—“

“No, shut up,” Zayn says, “shut up. I don’t want you to thank me. This isn’t a joke, this is grown up, serious fucking shit that you can’t do. Ever again. I love you too. But Jesus, Louis, it was a close fucking call. You can’t…you can’t do that. You can’t talk to him, you can’t leak him anything. You just. Never again, okay?”

Louis nods, and hates himself, because despite the shit this thing with Harry has caused, he still feels his heart tug with disappointment.

“Don’t…don’t fuck this up for some boy,” Zayn says, “please. Please don’t. Don’t fuck it up for yourself and don’t fuck it up for the President.”

Louis feels so, so awful; so humiliated that Zayn has to say that.

“Yeah,” Louis says, “I…I won’t. You know that.”

Zayn doesn’t answer. There’s a beat, a silence, and Louis can’t bear it. “Should we, you know. Get upstairs?”

He looks at Louis for a moment, like he’s trying to gauge where he’s at.

“Yeah, c’mon then,” he says, and that’s that.

**

The next two weeks pass slowly. They’re slow and they’re shit and the whole time Louis’ torn between about a million different things; between work and Zayn’s watchful eye and the other people in his briefing room, between calling his Mum for her birthday and sending something down to her, between Nick running him fucking ragged and the President’s trip to Japan and a roadside bomb in Israel and a small group of far right Congressmen making his life hell by claiming the President used to be affiliated with them in college.

And then there’s Harry, which makes a shitty, overworked few weeks about three million times worse.

They don’t talk. If they pass each other in the hall, Harry drops his head. The first few times, Louis’d tried to smile, but it had felt so fucking surface. Harry hadn’t even bothered looking, just dropped his gaze and looked so sad that Louis wanted to cry, wanted to run after him, wanted to do something, but didn’t.

People start to notice, he supposes. Up until now he’s kept quite a casual, relaxed briefing room, not much minding having a couple of unrelated conversations during his briefings, dropping in a few jokes and off the record snipes here and there. But he’s testy now, pissed off and rushed and just wanting to get out of a room where Harry’s forced to look at him, and people notice.

He’s answering a question on the Administration’s commitment to public schools, asked by Eleanor who’s working with a publication in Miami. He knows her quite well, they went to high school together, actually, and kind of have a history. High school wasn’t his favourite place on Earth, and she’d been awfully good to him back then. Sometimes it strikes him as unbelievably odd that that so many of the people he’s forged proper relationships with in his life have ended up right here with him. Still, he supposes it makes sense to an extent; he’s always bee drawn to likeminded people. She smiles as he finishes his response.

“C’mon, Louis, that’s all? Are you reading that off a memo?” she asks lightly, winking. But he’s not in the mood today, hasn’t been for a while.

“That’s generally my job, yes. Professional memo reader,” he says dryly, “alright, who’s—“

“No, Louis, seriously,” she continues, “give us a number. What’s in the budget for public schools?”

He sighs, “No budgeting announcements are being made today,” he says, “I’ve made that clear. That’s enough, I’m done talking about it, you’re wasting your time and mine. Right, next, yes, Denver Post.”

She looks at him, a little confused, and he thinks fantastic, another fucking mess to clear up.

He doesn’t even look at Harry anymore, because Harry never looks back. He sits there at least once a day, and even when he’s asking a question, pressing him for more, he never locks eyes.

**

Somehow, Louis has himself believing he can make it through the next four years without having anything but the most minimal of working relationships with Harry Styles, Washington Post.

Apparently not.

He fucks up, is the thing. Fucks up big time. And all press secretaries do it, it’s a rite of passage of sorts, he supposes he’ll look back on it with a rueful smile. But not tonight, because tonight, boy does he fuck up.

“Is the President considering military action?”

Louis blinks a few times, tries to adjust himself to the room, the cameras, the voices. It’s 11pm. He hasn’t slept in two days; in that time he’s given six briefings, had seven meetings and tried to watch as the President’s health reform bill got a vote in Congress (they won by the skin of their teeth) while Nick and the President spent an ominous amount of time in the Situation Room.

Here’s what’s happened: Six troops in Afghanistan have been taken hostage by what appear to be government forces. They’re not even troops, really, they’re advisors, there to oversee the transition period as the US pull their troops out. The government of Afghanistan – for reasons unknown, or at least unknown to Louis – are unwilling to negotiate their release. Louis doesn’t know what’s happening. Zayn doesn’t know, Liam doesn’t know, and if they don’t know Niall doesn’t know; and if Nick and the President know anything (which Louis doubts, because the building is in chaos), they’re not around to brief him.

“Can you…there was noise, can you repeat that?”

The reporter stands again, someone he doesn’t recognise, probably from AP.

“I asked if, at the suggestion of the National Security Advisor, the President was considering taking military action to relieve the hostage crisis in Afghanistan?”

“It’s not a crisis, firstly. Secondly—“

“Excuse me?” She doesn’t sit down, just looks at Louis quizzically. He’s so, so tired. “Not a crisis? Louis, there are six Americans being held against their will in a hostile nation, if—“

“It’s not a crisis, it’s a diplomatic situation and we’re dealing with it. Next question, Times—“

“Louis, that’s not an answer to my question. Is the President considering—“

“The President has a lot on his plate right now, and is doing what is necessary. He has many other things on his mind and at this point in the evening probably knows as much about military action in this situation as you and I,” he snaps loudly, tone laced with annoyance.

The room falls very, very quiet. Because unless he’s mistaken, he’s just insinuated that six American lives are not top of the President’s list of priorities, and that he’s not being seriously advised on what to do next. Fantastic.

“What I meant to say, of course, is that—“ He is cut off by the rising noise, Louis, Louis, can you clarify that? Louis, is there something happening that we don’t know about? The room is getting away from him, he’s not experienced this before. It’s bad. He can’t get that back, not by standing and waiting patiently, not by yelling. They descend into furor. He doesn’t know what to do, so he decides to get out.

“Right, that’s all for now. I’ll be back with any developments in three hours. Thank you,” he says quickly, collects his papers and notes and scrawled last minute quotes and leaves the podium, slamming the door behind him.

Shit. Shit.

He doesn’t move for a long moment. He can’t even remember what he’s said, he’s so tired, but he knows it was bad. Knows it was soundbyte worthy, knows he’s in for a fucking ass kicking from Nick.

Shit.

It’s not fifteen seconds before Zayn rounds the corner, face ashen.

“Don’t,” Louis spits, pushing past him, “just…not right now, okay, I know. Don’t.”

“Louis.” Zayn grabs his arm. “Has a lot on his plate? Louis, it’s a fucking hostage situation, how—“

“I know, okay?” He wheels around to look at Zayn before breaking out of his grip. “Damn it,” he mutters to himself, “fucking damn it.” He swallows, loosens his tie.

“I’m going upstairs,” he says numbly, and Zayn lets him go, if for no other reason than he’s too tired to argue right now.

He makes it to his office, just. All the secretarial staff watch him as he goes, murmuring, shooting him sympathetic little looks. It’s enough to make him want to jump out the fucking window. He thinks he should go home, puts his coat on with a shaky breath. He feels nauseous, can feel the angry tears pricking at his eyes, the disappointment coursing through him. Has a lot on his plate. Knows as much as you and I. God. God. How did he possibly do that? He thinks about tomorrow morning; having to watch playback, having to hear them all advising him on how best to clear it up in his morning briefing, like the fucking problem child of the group. He wants to crawl away and die, and that’s before he even considers the headlines tomorrow; the way he’ll be paraphrased in every publication across the country. They’ll all run it for weeks, start questioning the whole administration, their defence policies, Louis’ job. And he just—

“Louis!”

Louis freezes. It’s Nick. And he can’t – can’t – have him in here losing his shit right now. He physically can’t see the look on his face.

“Louis!” Nick pounds on his office door, locked from the inside. “Louis, for God’s sake, let me in.”

And the thing is, he has no choice. He can’t pretend he’s not there, he’s not eleven years old. He takes a deep breath, wipes at his eyes, before opening it gingerly.

“Hi,” he says quietly, looking at the ground, “look, Nick, I know, yeah? I know I fucked it u—“

“It’s not your turn to speak,” Nick says coldly, “you’ve done enough of that. Sit down.”

Louis does as he’s told, if only out of utter mortification.

“I don’t have time,” Nick says slowly, deathly quiet, “for you to be making mistakes like tonight.”

Louis swallows.

“I don’t have time for you to be going in there are getting all heated like you’re in a fucking high school debate,” Nick says, a little louder, “do you understand?”

Louis clenches his jaw, looks him dead in the eye. “Yes, I fucking understand, thank you for treating me like an idiot.”

“You were an idiot in there tonight, Louis, Jesus!” All pretence of calm is gone, Nick’s gesturing wildly, eyebrows raised, voice loud. “What the fuck was that? I get pulled out of a meeting in the fucking Situation Room to come and watch you spit the fucking dummy at some idiot from AP! That’s textbook, Louis, that’s fucking textbook and y—“

“Alright,” Louis says loudly, over the top of him, just to shut him the fuck up, “alright. I get it. I fucked it up.”

“No, I don’t think you do get it, Louis! We quite literally do not have time for this. The polls have gone to shit for some unknown fucking reason, nothing is getting passed on the floor, we—“

“—I know! I’ve got it, thank you. I also work here, I get it,” Louis spits, “you don’t have to fucking lecture me, Nick, I know I fucked it up royally. What more do you want?”

Nick looks at him, exhausted eyes boring into him. “I want you to go home,” he says shortly, “I want you to go home and sort your head out, get some sleep, do some fucking yoga, call your mother, I don’t care. Come back here in the morning and we’ll deal with the headlines and the aftermath then.”

Louis opens his mouth to argue, to say he can do it now, but truth is he’s spent. He’s absolutely fucking spent, and maybe Nick’s right. Maybe he could do with some sleep. There’s nothing he can do now, print deadline’s not for another two hours, they’re all going to run it no matter what happens.

“Okay,” he says quietly, picking up his bag, “okay.”

And with that, he leaves Nick standing in his office alone, scanning himself into the elevator.

**

There are two things Louis needs to do the next morning, and he’s not sure which one is worse. The first is to fix up the mess from his clusterfuck of a day yesterday. The second is apologise to the President.

He gets in very early, at five or so, and Nick’s standing in his office a little awkwardly, coffee in hand.

“Hi,” Louis says shortly, “Look, I’m not in the mood for a—“

“I’m sorry, okay?” Nick rolls his eyes as he says it, but still. It takes Louis by surprise, because unless he’s mistaken, Nick is apologizing to him. He stares at him expectantly. “I’d had a long and fucking terrible day and I took it out on you and that was unprofessional and I shouldn’t’ve. So,” Nick says, “caffeine?”

Louis takes it off him, clears his throat. “’M’sorry too,” he says, “I’m sorry for fucking up in there. Can I get some time with the President before I start looking through this shitstorm?” He gestures vaguely to the freshly delivered stack of morning editions on his desk, stomach flipping as he does so.

Nick nods. “Sure, yeah, he’s free now, if you want.”

Louis sighs, stands up and runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he says, “guess so.”

**

The Oval Office is always intimidating. Louis probably goes in there once or twice a day, and it still makes his heart rate pick up every time. So today, when he’s going in there not to offer advice but to apologise for making a stupid, stupid mistake, he thinks he might throw up.

He goes in and Greg’s at the desk, on the phone to someone. He holds a finger up to Louis to indicate he’s wrapping it up and Louis nods, stands patiently by the door until he’s done.

“Great,” he says, “great. Okay. Okay, thank you, Mr Ambassador, we’ll speak shortly. Take care.”

He hangs up with a sigh before turning to Louis, walking out from behind the desk to usher him in.

“Hi, Louis,” he says, always with a kind smile, always so willing to talk to his staff, despite the fact he’s running the free world, and in that second Louis remembers exactly why he’s here. “What can I do for you?”

Louis takes a deep breath. They don’t sit down in these meetings, as a general rule, the President either sits on or behind the desk and the staff stand. Louis has nothing to fiddle with, nothing to make him look more authoritative than he feels, and it makes this whole experience all the more humbling.

“I just wanted to say, I’m sorry for yesterday. I’m sorry for what I said in the briefing room, I had no excuse for it and. That’s it, really. I’m so sorry.”

Louis isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but it’s not what comes next. Greg smiles, looks him right in the eye.

“You know what happens when I screw up in my job? We go to war, or we lose billions of dollars, or small nations start hating us,” he says, “or big ones. It’s been known to happen.”

Louis laughs quietly, feels that glow of he’s quite possibly the most fantastic leader in the world.

“So it’s okay. We all do it. And you were in a position I don’t envy yesterday, and you did your best.”

Louis nods, and fuck, if there was ever a moment to be inspired by this job, it’s right now.

“I don’t need you to apologise for making an honest mistake, or for losing your cool on a day like that. We all do it, and we all did it yesterday. Did you know that Nick almost told the National Security Advisor to fuck off?”

Louis smirks, because he’ll be dining out on this one for a long time, he imagines. “No, Sir, I didn’t.”

“Right. So don’t apologise. Go into your office this morning, have a cup of strong coffee, and try and fix it. Deal?”

“Yes,” Louis says, slightly taken aback, because he knows right now that he’s never made a better decision in his life than his pledge to get this man elected, “thank you.”

Greg smiles, waves him off. “Don’t mention it.” He walks back behind the desk at that, picks a pen up from the cup on his desk before pressing the intercom button.

“What’s next?” he asks into the speaker, and Louis takes that as his cue to leave.

**

An hour later and Louis is really quite grateful for the President’s little pep talk earlier, because these headlines are fucking brutal.

The Times run with Out of the Loop or Out of his Mind? Which. You know. Thank you ever so much, Aiden. And he knows he’s only doing his job, is the thing, he knows that. But it still hurts.

Some other choice ones include Louis Tomlinson’s Gaffe Reveals Systematic White House Flaws; Just Who Is In The Loop? And Press Secretary Admits To White House Failings.

An hour later and he’s got one paper to go and he doesn’t imagine he’s going to feel any better. It’s the Post. And professionally, there’s meant to be an understanding that despite how friendly he may be with the press corps, everything is fair game. If he, or any of them fuck up, these people have a duty to report it and he knows that. It’s why he can still be friends with Aiden after that, with all of them. But this…this is different, because it’s Harry. And he really, really doesn’t want this from him.

James Makes Historic Ground On Health Care Reform.

Louis blinks, and reads it again. It still says the same thing. He swallows, checks the date of the paper, in case some fucking intern has left him an old one. It’s today’s date. James Makes Historic Ground On Health Care Reform, and underneath in small block letters Harry Styles – White House Correspondent.

Okay.

Louis stands slowly, opens his door and walks through the open plan office towards the elevator as he reads the article. It’s all about the President’s new bill. Even the page two story about the hostages doesn’t mention him at all.

He finishes the article as the elevator dings open on the press level. He folds it up and makes his way to the end of the corridor where Harry’s office is, ignoring the murmurs and guilty looks that follow him. He’ll deal with them later; for now, Harry.

He bursts in without knocking, and Harry nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, wheeling around, “I…oh.” He cuts himself off as he sees Louis standing there, brandishing his paper. “Can I help you?”

“What…what the fuck is this?” he asks, his voice going to that slightly heady place that it always does when he’s somewhat hysterical.

Harry just blinks at him evenly.

“Thought it’d get your attention,” he says, deadpan, “y’know, considering sleeping with you didn’t.”

Louis’ jaw hits the floor and his heart hits the roof of his mouth. Shit.

“Harry,” he murmurs desperately, brow furrowing, “Harry, you can’t do that. You can’t—“

He notices, then, the smile dancing across Harry’s face.

“What?” he asks, eyes narrowing.

“I’m only joking, Louis, relax,” he says, smirk still playing on his lips, “I’m not actually risking my job and the task of informing the greater Washington area about its government just to get back in your pants.”

Louis flinches, slightly, feels his chest tighten at that.

“Honestly, I just made a call. I think health reform is more important than you being overtired and annoyed at us all barking at you. I think voters would rather read about how they’re going to be better off come July 1 than have shit unnecessarily stirred.”

Harry raises his eyebrows expectantly and Louis opens and closes his mouth, twice. He’s starting to feel very much on the back foot.

“You’re…you’re the only one in the whole press corps who made that call.”

Harry just shrugs, chews on the back of his pen in a way Louis really wishes he wouldn’t because it makes it so, so hard to concentrate.

“So I’m better at my job than all of them. Or worse, maybe,” he grins at himself, “but I made a call, and I stand by it. And added bonus,” he says, “it got your attention.”

And Louis thinks his heart might break in two there, because as much as Harry’s joking, he’s not joking. Louis swallows.

“You’ve always had my attention,” he says quietly, “you know that. You must know that. If you want something, you only have to ask.”

Harry just snorts, shakes his head, but doesn’t drop his gaze. “Yeah, right. ‘Cos that would’ve worked.”

“You’re the one who hasn’t looked at me in a fucking month, Harry, Christ!” He doesn’t mean to get angry, is the thing, but he can’t do this silent, tiptoeing thing that Harry seems to do so well. It’s not how he’s wired. But Harry doesn’t shift, just keeps looking at him steadily.

“You’re the one who kicked me out of your flat, Louis,” he says quietly. And there it is, really. Louis bites his lip, drops his gaze, and the silence hangs over them for a moment. And then before he knows what he’s doing – because this is a very, very bad idea – he looks up again, smiles a little sadly.

“Coffee?” he asks, and the way Harry’s face lights up drowns out the voice in the back of his head saying no, no, no.

**

They get coffee, outside the building. And it’s…it’s nice. It’s nice to have him back. It takes a while, to get him to open up, but once he does it’s as though the last month never happened. Sure, it makes Louis’ heart tug every time he sees Harry go to brush his fingers quickly over Louis’ and hold back, every time he flashes Louis his big, lit up dimply smile before shutting it off, as though Louis’ll cry witch if he senses him flirting. It’s occasionally stilted, but it’s nice to have his friend back. That’s about as good as it’s going to get, and he’s got to be happy with that.

They talk, surprisingly, about the hard stuff. There’s something about being in the presence of someone as disarmingly honest as Harry that stops Louis from clamming up like a repressed forty-something as he normally does, and just listen.

Harry’s talking slowly, not quite making eye contact.

“It’s not like…I didn’t want to ignore you,” he says, a little sheepishly, “I just. I don’t know. Didn’t know what else to do?”

“Okay,” Louis says quietly.

“I mean, it was two months of my life, you know. And then we had that night, and whatever, and it was fun and then. It wasn’t?”

He looks up at Louis as though searching for reassurance, and Louis feels very quiet.

“I’m sorry,” he replies, “I…I’m sorry. There’s nothing else I can say, I guess, but I am sorry.”

Harry nods. They fall into a silence, and the whole time Louis can see him thinking something through, as though he’s not quite sure what to say. Louis’ quite sure he knows what’s coming, but let’s Harry get there himself first.

“Can I ask you something?” he settles on saying, and Louis nods easily. “Is it because…Lou, do they not know you’re gay?”

There is it. Louis smiles at him, laughs a little before taking a sip of his drink.

“Oh, how I wish that were true,” he says dramatically, before sitting up with a sigh, “but no. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. I went to college with a handful of them, and, well.” He smirks. “I wasn’t the Virgin Mary in college. I slept with a lot of people. Mostly guys. And Aiden, actually, a bunch of times. Also this is all off the record,” he tacks onto the end, for good measure. Harry just snorts.

“Oh,” Harry says, seeming genuinely surprised, “okay.”

“Not that you’d believe me today,” Louis says, gesturing at a paper lying on the table next to them, his face plastered on the front, “but I’m not very newsworthy, usually. No one cares. I’m kind of a non-story, regardless of who I want to sleep with. Which is brutally unfair, because I look quite nice up on that podium.”

Harry just laughs, easily and unrestrained for the first time all morning.

“Okay,” he says, “so if you can sleep with whoever you want…” He trails off. They both know what he’s asking.

“I can sleep with whoever I want,” he clarifies, “as long as their jurisdiction falls outside of the White House. And I could probably get away with a few people in the White House actually, but Harry. Not the press corps. I can’t—“

“Yeah,” Harry says shortly.

“You, you know how that looks, right?” Louis says, a little desperately, but only because he wants Harry to understand, “I can’t…I can’t say that I’m doing my job properly if I’m—“

“Yeah,” Harry says, softer this time, “no, I get it. It just.” He sighs, finishes his drink in one gulp. “Sucks? Or something?”

Louis nods, and he doesn’t break eye contact with Harry. “Yeah.”

They both sigh deeply at that, and laugh, because it’s all so achingly ridiculous.

“I have to get back to work,” Harry says softy, standing up, “I guess you do too.”

Louis nods, stands with him and picks his phone up off the table. They stare at each other for a long moment before Louis laughs tiredly, runs a hand over his face.

“I missed this,” he admits, and Harry just smiles, nods. And before Louis can stop him, before he can lose his mind over who else might be in this café and who else might see them, Harry leans in, cups his hand over Louis’ left cheek and kisses his right, quickly and quietly but undeniably there.

“See you later, Lou,” he says, and then he’s gone.

Louis considers taking his four hours compulsory sleep right fucking now. It’s been one of the longest days of his life, and he’s not even done his first briefing yet.

**

They’re friends. Really, they are. They are very professional, smile-in-the-halls, chat-about-work, leak-strategic-news, do-nothing-that-could-be-misconstrued friends.

And it’s fine. It’s a fucking blessing that Harry smiles at him again, that they can chat easily and laugh in a way that perhaps isn’t exactly how they used to, but still comfortable, still nice.

It’s just not what Louis wants. He’s learnt a lot of things in the last few months. He’s learnt that Nick hates his tea with sugar (Louis, naturally, when asked to make him a cup, conveniently forgets this fact), that losing his temper never leads to anything good, that sleep is actually required if one is to function remotely well. He’s learnt that Zayn’s a fucking brilliant friend and that despite the hard days, he’s never done anything more worthwhile with his life than working for Greg James.

Coincidentally, he’s also learnt that he’s quite ridiculously in love with a reporter in his briefing room with a moleskine notebook and the most absurdly red lips in the world.

So it’s bittersweet, now. Because not that he’s asked, but he’s pretty sure Harry feels the same way. Talking is nice. Grabbing a bite to eat to discuss policy or numbers on the floor is interesting and he always likes hearing Harry’s take, as an outsider with a fair bit of insider knowledge. But then they’ll catch themselves laughing or staring or wanting (Louis, anyway, finds himself doing the latter more than he probably should) and it feels like a punch in the gut. Because Harry and he would be so good together, really. He can see it, and it’s been a while since he’s remotely felt about anyone like that. And the one person, the one person in his whole, huge, ever-growing life who maybe fills that gap, is one of the forty-odd people he can’t have.

Bittersweet is maybe too kind of a word for it.

“You right, man?” Liam knocks at his office door gingerly with a smile, coming in as Louis snaps himself out of his own head. They catch him doing that a lot more, lately, zoning out every now and again. Work has, up until now, been a distraction from whatever he feels towards Harry. Now it doesn’t stop him thinking, and he’s not quite sure why that’s changed.

“Sure,” he says, “everything okay?”

Liam nods, sits down on the couch lining Louis’ office wall. “Yeah. Yeah, just checking in.”

“Why?” Louis asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously, “who put you up to it? What’ve I done? If Aiden called you to have a bitch about me not telling you about the President’s press conference today, he’s lying. I did tell them, I just didn’t give them a time, and even if I had—“

“Lou,” Liam says with a little smile, “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, you do know that, right?”

“Oh. Well,” he says, because he really had thought that’d been it, “who was it then?”

“No one, actually. You just seem a bit…” he pauses, as though trying to gauge where Louis is at. Louis’ job is to perfect his poker face. Liam should know better. “…a little off, I guess,” he shrugs, “so seriously. Are you okay?”

“’Course I am. Just tired, I guess. Big week.”

“They’re all big weeks.”

Louis laughs at that, a little; a truer word may never have been spoken.

“Agreed. But yeah, Li, I’m fine. Thanks though,” he says, “don’t you have a country to run, or something?”

Liam smiles. “You could say that,” he says, “mostly I’m just sweet talking overworked Senators.”

The conversation peters out; Liam goes back to his office with a reminder that he’s just around the corner, if Louis needs him. And, you know. He’s not going to go and sit in Liam’s armchair with a hot chocolate and whine about his boy troubles to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff. But it makes him feel a little better, strangely, knowing there are at least a handful of people who can tell when he’s off colour. Knowing that, at the end of the day, is the most comforting thing to happen to him in a while.

He does a good job of being Louis Tomlinson, White House Press Secretary, for the most part. His room regains that liveliness and energy it had in the first two or three months of the year, that buzz and banter that constantly thread through those four walls. He starts to enjoy being up at the podium again, rather than spending his whole time trying to work around Harry; he thrives off the challenge of his job more and more now. Fearne asks him one day what he’s taking to look so fucking alive all the time, and Louis thinks there’s something in that question. He’s hardly knocking back anything illicit but it feels, sometimes, as if now that he’s put a definitive end to him and Harry, that work is all he’s got. That since there’s no chance, he’s throwing himself in even more, an effort to convince everyone he’s fine.

It works. It works on the press corps, on his colleagues, on his aides and interns and the core group that work around him. It works on his mother, for God’s sake. There is one person left, though, who knows him well enough to call his bluff, and that’s Zayn.

They get drunk one Friday night, sprawled out on Louis’ couch in his apartment. They’re meant to be finishing off a few speeches for next week together, but Zayn’d remembered a bottle of peach schnapps he’d put in Louis’ closet last time he came over and it’d only seemed proper to actually drink it once they’d fished it out. And so now Louis’ got his head resting on Zayn’s thigh as they pass the bottle between them, lines getting ever blurrier by the second.

“Can I ask you something?” Zayn asks, a little sleepily, fingers absentmindedly dragging through Louis’ hair. Louis yawns, nods, turns over onto his side.

“Shoot.”

“What happened with Harry?”

Louis’ brain switches back on at that. He sits up, curls into the couch and takes the bottle from Zayn, taking a few good long sips for strength.

“I sucked him off,” he says, reveling in the look on Zayn’s face, “then I was a bastard. Then he forgave me.”

Zayn shakes his head, fondly exasperated. “That’s not what I meant, Lou.”

“What did you mean?” he asks, “we…we stopped fucking, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“No,” Zayn says softly, “no, like…where are you guys at? What was the deal, with the two of you?”

Louis blinks. He could lie. He’s not that drunk; he could lie very easily and move this conversation right along. But he doesn’t know if he wants to, tonight. Maybe he wants to talk about it, wants someone else to know.

“What’s the deal?” he repeats, and Zayn nods. And then, well, why not. “I’m in love with him, funnily enough.”

Louis doubts Zayn’d been expecting that answer, judging by the look on his face.

“Oh,” he says softly, looking at Louis with unbearable tenderness, “Lou, I—“

Louis waves him off, shuts him up. He can take empathy; he won’t take pity. “It’s…it is what it is, Zayner,” he says, answer unsatisfying even to his own ears, “shit happens. You know?”

Zayn nods, pulls him in for a messy hug.

“Love you, Lou. Missed this stuff, y’know? Miss you.”

And it’s funny, Louis thinks, because they spend every working hour together, and most of their hours are work. But sometimes it’s as if they see less of each other than ever now; like they’re further removed than those few years they lived on other sides of the country.

“I know,” he murmurs, “love you too. But enough, because we actually have to do this.”

“You know it’ll all work out, right?” Zayn says suddenly, “you’ll find someone else. Someone who—“

“—Oh my God, can we please talk about something else? I’m begging. Please. C’mon, let’s pretend you care enough about carbon pricing to write a horribly uplifting speech on it,” Louis says quickly, a touch too fast, a touch too smiley.

Zayn looks at him sadly, small smile on his face.

“You’re not my boss, Lou,” he says quietly. For some reason, it makes Louis want to crawl up and cry. He wonders if everyone can see it as well as Zayn can, if they all know what’s going on.

“Maybe not, but I do have pictures of you dressed as playboy bunny from Halloween one year,” Louis says smugly, “so you should still do what I say.”

“I have the same pictures of you, too, in case you’ve forgotten,” Zayn points out, but backs down at the look on Louis’ face, “but point taken.”

Zayn seems happy enough to drop it, and Louis’ glad, because he’s not sure how much longer he could’ve kept the charade up for.

**

They’ve been here six months.

It’s July 20; six whole months since Greg put his hand on Lincoln’s bible and gave that speech that Zayn and Niall had spent weeks working on and became President. To Louis – and he imagines, to the rest of the staff – it feels both like six days and six years, so much crammed into so little time, so many nights without sleep, so many days where they either wanted to burn the whole place down or kiss each other on the mouth out of sheer jubilation.

It’s been six months, and the President and the First Lady are throwing a party in the East Room for all the staff, from Nick right down to the kid that brings Louis coffee in the afternoon. The building is lit up beautifully, small tea lights lining the cream walls and chandelier in the centre of the room throwing a warm glow across dinner jackets and dresses alike.

It’s a lovely gesture, Louis thinks, and he enjoys the night as much as he can. One of the disadvantages of his job is that he’s the one who coordinates a lot of this stuff, so, you know. It’s less glamorous for him than for everyone else, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.

Ellie takes to the front of the crowd with a glass of champagne in hand, positively beaming as Greg and the rest of the party claps her onto stage. She gives an entirely endearing and off the cuff toast, she’s just as good as Greg at all of this and Louis supposes that’s why they work so well together. She has the staff in the palm of her hand, hanging on her every word as she raises her glass.

“So thank you, all of you, so much for your hard work and unwavering dedication. The President couldn’t have done it without you, and I certainly couldn’t have either. This is for all of you tonight, for your last six months, and we drink to the next six months and the distant hope of a boozy Christmas party.”

Everyone laughs easily, follows her as she takes a sip of champagne and walks back to Greg, laughing and giving him a kiss on the cheek. Louis turns away with a smile, finishes off his flute of Moet and walking across the room to find Niall.

“Louis! Louis, stand with Zayn and Aimee for a moment, will you?”

One of the photographers corners him at the bar, pointing to where the two of them are chatting easily a few feet away. Louis agrees, walks over to them and loops an arm around either, standing on his toes just a little so he doesn’t look positively swamped by Zayn.

“Smile,” he says obnoxiously loudly, pinching both of them on the cheek. He gets a slap on either side of his face for that just as the camera goes off, which he supposes will look absolutely ridiculous. Still, the photographer doesn’t ask for another, just moves through the rest of the crowd to no doubt find someone else to capture.

The press are littered through the party, but Louis can’t see Harry. Which he supposes is good, in retrospect, because last time the two of them were around this crowd and a bit of alcohol things hadn’t ended terribly well. Or they had, he supposes, which is the problem.

“Lou!”

He reaches an ever-beaming Niall just as the music kicks back in after the First Lady’s toast, smiling as he gets an armful of Deputy Communications Director giving him a hug.

“Here’s to half a year, man!” he says loudly, clinking his glass with Louis’ empty one. Louis has to admire the ease with which he gets shitfaced.

“You too,” he says with a smile, “we didn’t totally fuck it up, against all the odds, did we?”

Niall laughs into his shoulder, grins as the party carries on around them. “Nah,” he says, “nah, we did alright, Lou. You did the best, though.”

“I think the President probably did the best,” Louis says with a wry grin, “but thank you, Horan, you weren’t too poorly yourself.”

Niall looks at him in outrage. “Not too poorly! Fuck off! I wrote that speech on tax reform, I wrote half of the fucking State of the Union, I’ll have you know, and it was only last week that—“

He’s interrupted by Louis’ pager bleeping loudly from where he’s placed it on the table.

“Ugh,” Louis groans, considering whether he can just drop it in Niall’s drink and let it drown, “why tonight? Why is there not one night, Nialler, where I can drink nice champagne and watch clever, eloquent people give speeches that stroke my ego?”

Niall just shrugs, eyes a little too drunk for him to be listening properly. His pager didn’t go off, and Louis imagines he’s going to do all he can to keep it that way. Lucky bastard.

With a sigh, he picks it up, and frowns a little. It’s not a number he recognizes.

Rose Garden? I have coffee! and then I don’t, but you know. It’s our thing, isn’t it?

And yeah, he knows who that is. His heart seems to settle in his throat, stomach twisting.

“I gotta go,” he murmurs to Niall who’s already busy talking to one of the interns, Amy, and with that he walks away.

It’s not a long walk to the Rose Garden; down to the bottom floor, across the open plan offices and through Nick’s office (he’s not meant to do that, but whatever), going out the back door and onto the terrace. He takes the steps down to the garden slowly, trying to pull his head together.

He has no idea what this is about. If it was work, Harry would’ve met him in his office, and besides, Harry’s not meant to be working, he’s meant to be at the party. Louis has no idea what’s going on, but his heart is racing and his stomach feels like it’s turning to liquid and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like being so willfully in Harry’s palm, his emotions so dictated by him, and he’s certainly not ready for Harry to spring something on him that makes that all worse.

He walks into the garden and it looks absolutely stunning. Soft light bounces off the garden beds of roses and trimmed grass, air fresh, light breeze blowing in the July heat. He breathes it in, the clean, fresh smell of the place, before lifting his gaze.

He feels his breath fall away as he looks under the huge tree at the bottom of the garden, where Harry’s sitting, grinning at him with a glass of red wine in his hand. He looks so, so gorgeous in his dinner suit; hair swept to the side, white shirt pressed and crisp next to his black tie.

He stands as he sees Louis, begins walking over to him, and Louis does the same, until they’re standing together, smiling like idiots in the middle of the Rose Garden. Louis’ heart tugs. He looks so, so wonderful.

“Well this is all very coming-of-age film adapted from an eye-rollingly pretentious novel,” Louis notes dryly. Harry just smiles, tips his glass to Louis. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Harry doesn’t answer straight away, looks at his feet and bites his lip in a valiant attempt to stop his dimples popping up, and then laughs a little, before clearing his throat.

“I want to do something and then I want to tell you something, and you have to let me, okay?”

Louis is a little stunned, and he doesn’t like this, doesn’t like the twisting in his stomach.

“O-okay.”

And with Louis’ permission now his, Harry closes the distance between them, one hand on Louis’ waist and the other still holding his glass, fingers running through Louis’ hair as he kisses him. His lips are soft and less frantic than last time, and Louis is all here now, can feel every touch and every breath and every movement of Harry’s lips.

It takes him a few seconds to realise what’s happening (Harry is kissing him, in the middle of the Rose Garden, for fuck’s sake), and when he does he wants to cry. He wants this so much. He wants to loop his fingers into Harry’s belt loops and smile against his lips, feel Harry hum with laughter and lick into his mouth, wants to go back to his place and he can’t.

He closes his eyes for a moment, let’s himself savour it and feel it and kiss him back for a few seconds. And then he does what he needs to do, what has to be done, because he has no idea what Harry’s game is here but he can’t play it. He shuts his eyes and gently pulls away, pushes Harry back. But Harry doesn’t go, is the thing; he holds Louis tighter and presses small, chaste kisses to his lips, trying to get him to open up. Louis thinks his heart might break, might tear itself in two at the sheer unfairness of having all of this right here and having to throw it all back.

“Stop,” he says finally, panting, pushing Harry away because if he lets it go any longer he won’t be able to stop, “just…please,” he croaks, “don’t make this so hard. Stop.”

But Harry’s still smiling, that same infuriating smile that he had on his face the first time they met, when he had to explain that Campaign reporter and White House reporter were different things. He smiles like he has a secret, he smiles like he knows something Louis doesn’t.

“I have to tell you something now,” he says quietly, but Louis doesn’t want to hear it anymore. Doesn’t want to hear Harry say, fuck it, I love you, who cares, they won’t find out, because Louis cares and they will find out and there’s nothing he wants more and there’s nothing he can have less.

“Harry—“

“This is my last day in the White House,” he says, all rushed and in one breath. Louis blinks, mind blanking out before the questions and shock crash back into his head.

“No,” he says, voice barely there. His head is swimming. “Harry. You can’t quit your job over…over this. It’s the White House Press Corps. This isn’t…fuck, Harry, this isn’t some shitty office job, believe me, if it was I’d’ve been out of here and in your bed months ago. But Harry—“

He rolls his eyes, shutting Louis up. He puts his wineglass down on the ground.

“I didn’t quit,” he says, and Louis feels his stomach drop even further, his face pale.

“Oh fuck,” he whispers, can’t help the hand that strokes down Harry’s cheek, “oh shit, did they…did they fire you? Did they find out? I can get Nick to talk to them, I can try—“

Harry laughs, absurdly, and Louis wants to tell him to stop smiling and to take this seriously, because he’s not laughing if he’s hurt Harry’s career in any way, let alone like this, but before he can talk Harry claps a hand over his mouth.

“Listen to me,” he says slowly, “just listen, yeah? I got moved, that’s all. I’m not White House Correspondent anymore.” And at that, his face breaks into this big aching grin that Louis wants to eat up, wants to store on film, the dimple and the little lip bite and the way he casts his eyes down, like he’s going to burst with too much joy.

And then, “Lou, I got Foreign Correspondent.”

And Louis’ not ever really believed in things like luck and the alignment of the stars; everything he’s ever had he’s worked for, hard. But this, it’s too perfect. It’s too many months and too many disappointments and too many nights where he’s wasted his four hours sleep on this, on this boy and this impossibility and this feeling, like maybe if he doesn’t get to kiss him again he’ll die. So maybe he doesn’t believe in fate and destiny and all those things, maybe not; but he’s willing to make an exception.

“Oh,” he says, a little breathily, for the first time not pushing Harry away as he wraps his hands round Louis’ waist, slowly. He closes his eyes, lets himself remember it. “Oh. And, umm, what, you know, what does that, like, entail?”

Harry smiles at him, shakes his head a little because Louis’ being utterly ridiculous, he knows it, but he’ll play along.

“Well, I got posted to the Middle East. So two weeks in Washington, two weeks at our office in Jerusalem; wash, rinse, repeat.” He pauses, grins as Louis very slowly, warily, threads his fingers through Harry’s belt loops. “And you know what the best part is?” he asks.

Louis shakes his head, lets the blush and the smile take over his face. He’s quite sure he does know, actually, but he’s more than happy to indulge.

“No weeks in the White House,” Harry murmurs, giggling a little as he whispers in Louis’ ear, nips at his earlobe, “don’t have to hang out with you politics lot anymore.”

Louis laughs at that, bright and happy. He feels bright and happy, really this time, not just for work and not just for show, but really, really happy.

“What, never again?” he asks with a smile, as Harry comes up to lean his forehead on Louis’. He still smells like soap, but less like alcohol tonight. “Might miss you, Haz.”

“Hmm,” Harry ponders, “maybe every now and then?” He laughs, presses another kiss to Louis’ lips, almost lazily, almost like he has time now. Louis thinks it’s quite possibly the best kiss he’s ever been given.

“Yeah?” he asks, kissing Harry’s jaw, before pressing up on his toes to get to his lips. Harry pushes him back down gently, though, slowly, leans down to him instead.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, their faces not even an inch apart, “How’s two weeks a month sound?”

Louis thinks it sounds pretty fucking fantastic.

“There’s one condition, though,” he responds, burying his head in Harry’s chest for a moment, if only to hide the mess of a smile on his face. “Humour me here.”

Harry raises an eyebrow and Louis lifts his head to look right at him. He wants to do this properly.

“You know how we got coffee like, once or twice?” he asks.

Harry just snorts. “Or three hundred times, yeah, go on,” he says.

“Right. So we got coffee three hundred times and a drink every so often and, well,” Louis says, clearing his throat, and Harry laughs a little because he knows what that refers to, “all of that. But. Umm. Do you think I could take you to dinner, Harry Styles?” he asks.

And Louis isn’t sure how it’s possible, but the smile Harry’s been sporting since he came into the rose garden gets bigger.

“Yeah,” he says softly, so small and happy and soft, “yeah, I’d like that a lot.”

“And you promise you’ll never set foot inside this fucking building with a press pass ever again?”

“Sure.”

Louis just laughs at that, at how impossibly easy everything’s suddenly become. He threads his fingers through Harry’s, and Harry brings their entwined hands up to his lips, kisses Louis’ knuckles like he’s already trying to remember every part of him.

“Then yeah,” Louis says, “yeah, two weeks a month might just work.”

Harry rolls his eyes, as though he’s been waiting for that the whole time, and before Louis can chatter on anymore he cups his face in his hands (and God, they’re big, and Louis really quite likes that) and kisses him properly; every bit the kiss of a coming-of-age film adapted from an eye-rollingly pretentious novel. It’s strong and deep and so, so fucking happy; no guilt or rush or rationalization, just Harry pressing himself against Louis and kissing him until it hurts.

And Louis thinks that if there was ever a night to surpass that one back in November, in that hotel where Harry had sat with his moleskine notebook and quiet smile, it just might be this one.


End file.
